


this is all i'm asking for

by void_fish



Category: Hockey RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_fish/pseuds/void_fish
Summary: There are no plants in the desert.





	this is all i'm asking for

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aperfect20 (blamefincham)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blamefincham/gifts).



> the wonderful blamefincham asked for swede boyfriends, christmas, and magic realism. this is what happened. hope you like it!
> 
> big thanks to steph for the read-through and help!

There are no plants in the desert. Not really. The few living things that can survive late summer in Nevada don’t _feel_ living. Will can sense them, but it’s like they’re underground. He misses Goodale Park, and the trees there.

He makes his own, growing tulips, nasturtiums, sunflowers. They litter his apartment. Geraniums in his kitchen, water lilies floating in his comically oversized bath. Sometimes, just because he can, he creates miniature oak trees, leaves them in the middle of his coffee table. They don’t last very long, but he likes them anyway.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have a lot of guests that aren’t team, and they’re used to it. One day, Nate creates a tiny, palm sized sunshine for his orchid, and it leans into it, happily. When Will thanks him, Nate gives him a smile that’s not dissimilar from the sunshine hovering by the window, shutting out the rain.

Sometimes, when he’s really lonely, when it’s dark outside and he’s watching the Jackets play on a rare day when their games don’t coincide, he sits on the couch and twines ivy through his fingers easily, lets the vines swirl up his forearms, chasing the pale green tattoos that are now mostly hidden by the tan from the Nevada sun.

He doesn’t call Alex.

-

The first time Will realises he’s special, he almost gives his mamma a heart attack.

It’s his seventh birthday, and he’s playing in the yard with his new football. He manages to get it stuck in the tree in next door’s garden, and he stands on one of their plastic garden chairs to try and reach it, but. He’s too small.

He’s about to admit defeat and go tell his mamma, when the tree reaches out, and gives the football back to him. The branches part, and a vine wiggles it’s way to him, depositing the toy back in his hands easily.

‘Thank you,’ he says, because his mamma always says manners are important. She didn’t mention trees that move on their own, but he figures that’s a small detail.

The vine flickers through Will’s hair, pushing it out of his forehead, and then retreats.

Will spends all day trying to get it to come back. He decides maybe he needs to start smaller, and sits down, cross legged, in front of his mamma’s almost-dead rosebushes. His mamma’s a wonderful gardener, has flowers of all kinds and colours, and a small vegetable patch, where he steals peapods from by the handful when no one is looking, but it’s winter. Things don’t grow in winter.

He tilts his head, and concentrates. He isn’t sure what he’s concentrating on, until the roses-- start to flower. They had been limp and brown, not even buds, and they blossom into full grown roses, opening their petals to the setting sun.

He smiles, and they flutter at him. He hears a sharp intake of breath from behind him, and his mamma is standing there, pale as snow, hands clasped to her mouth.

-

He sits on a tall kitchen stool, mug of cocoa in his hands.

His mamma paces.

‘I thought you’d be older,’ she says. ‘Your grandfather-- he was almost sixteen before--’ She stops.

‘Did I do something wrong?’ Will asks.

‘Baby, no,’ she says, immediately rushing to him, cupping his face. ‘You’re just-- special, is all. Special like your grandfather was. Do you remember him?’

Will does, but only faintly. He knows he taught mamma to garden when she was little, and that he used to have a greenhouse full of tomatoes, even in winter.

‘You’re like him,’ she says. ‘A häxa.’

Will tilts his head, confused. He’s read books with häxor, and he’s pretty sure he’s not one. Häxor have warts. And cats.

‘I don’t think I want to be a häxa,’ he says.

‘It’s not a choice, baby,’ she says, soft. ‘You just are. And now you have to learn to control it.’

-

She gives him a flowerpot filled with damp soil, and a packet of small, dark seeds.

It takes him a few hours, but eventually, he manages to encourage small green tendrils out of the dirt. After a day, the pot is teeming with daisies, bright white and yellow and all waving at him from their home on his bedroom windowsill.

-

As he gets older, he gets better.

He makes his high school girlfriend a bouquet of roses in all different colours. His room at home is wreathed in ivy and other climbing plants. The daisies, almost ten years old now, still wave at him every time he comes home.

-

Will turns eighteen and gets a tattoo of trailing vines all over his right forearm in the palest green.

You can’t really see it unless the lighting is just right, but he knows it’s there, and that’s what he wants.

-

Will gets named to Team Sweden for World Juniors for the second year running.

It’s kind of incredible. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over wearing the Tre Kroner.

When he gets to  Norrtälje, for training camp, he can barely stop smiling long enough to accept the collection of blue and yellow clothing everyone gets.

Almost everyone there he knows either from last year, or just because Sweden is apparently a small fucking world when it comes to international competition, so Will tries to chill out, and act like he’s been here before. (He has, but that’s beside the point. Sue him for being excited about playing for his country.)

-

Ufa is fucking cold.

Will’s Swedish, he’s used to cold, but it’s negative fucking twelve, and everything is brown and dead.

On an off day, he goes to  Sofyushkina alley. All the trees are dead, but he can imagine how it looks in the summer, all green and vibrant and alive.

He’s the only one there. He takes off a glove, presses the palm of his hand to a tree, closes his eyes, and thinks, just for a second, just long enough for the life to spread through the whole alley.

It doesn’t last long. He’s not strong enough to keep them alive for more than a couple of minutes, but it makes him feel better anyway.

-

He’s walking back to the dorms when he realises he’s being followed. He assumes it’s Elias, or maybe Filip, but when he ducks around a corner and glances back, he realises it’s Alex, the kid from  Djurgårdens. He waits for him to catch up, and then turns around. Alex jumps out of his skin.

‘Wanna walk back together?’ Will asks. ‘I assume you’re heading back to the dorms.’

‘--Yeah,’ he says, after a pause. ‘I wasn’t sure which way it was, and then I saw you, so.’

They walk in silence for a little while. wIll isn’t sure how long Alex has been following him, and he isn’t sure how to ask.

‘Seen much of Ufa so far?’ he asks.

‘Just the alley with all the trees,’ Alex says, absent mindedly, and then Will almost hears his brain slam the brakes on. ‘I mean--’

‘You saw that, huh?’ Will asks, casual.

‘--No?’ Alex tries. Will laughs, shakes off his glove again. He makes a fist, and when he opens it, there’s an acorn sitting in his palm. When he glances up at Alex, he’s wide-eyed. His lips are slightly parted, and his cheeks are flushed, presumably from the cold.

‘It’s not a secret,’ Will says. ‘Well. It kind of is, but not around team. I’m not the only special guy on the team, you know?’

‘No,’ Alex says. ‘I, uh, didn’t, actually. You can _grow_ things?’

He hands the acorn over. Alex turns it over and over in his hands, like he’s trying to figure out if it’s real, and then hands it back.

‘Keep it,’ Will says. ‘It’s lucky.’

Alex’s smile is kind of wonky, like he’s only smiling with half of his mouth. Will kind of likes it anyway.

-

It doesn’t take long for Will to realise that, though Alex is _shockingly_ attractive, he’s kind of a disaster.

He loves ABBA, and tiny, embarrassingly fluffy dogs, and he calls his mom no less than three times one day to ask what salmon is supposed to look like when it’s cooked, before finally just sending her a picture.

He’s also a _wealth_ of terrible jokes, and it’s easy for him to goad Ricky into a joke-off, where there are no winners, just awful jokes until they both give up.

WIll catches him trying to take a selfie one day, just before the game. He’s tilting his chin every which way, frowning at the camera.

‘You want some help there?’ he asks, and regrets it immediately, because now his job title is apparently Official Picture Taker for Alex Wennberg’s Instagram. Alex shoves his phone into Will’s hand, and goes back to posing. He looks kind of like a tragic old Greek statue, Will thinks, tilting the phone a little and snapping a couple of testers.

‘The lighting here is so bad,’ Alex says, morosely, when he looks at them.

‘Your life is very hard,’ Will agrees, pleasant.

It takes twenty more minutes of Alex roaming around the room, turning lights on and off, but he finally gets a picture worthy of Instagram, and accepts his phone back, giving Will another one of those wonky smiles that somehow never make it to the camera.

-

They win silver.

It’s kind of crushing, especially considering they won gold last year, and they were so close to doing it again, and--

He takes a bottle of vodka back to his room, and texts Alex.

_ wanna come get drunk _

There’s a knock on his door a few minutes later.

‘Hey,’ Alex says. He’s wearing a Tre Kroner hoodie, and a baseball hat pulled low over his face.

Will steps back to let him in, and wiggles the bottle at him.

‘I didn’t want to drink alone,’ he says, and Alex laughs. 

‘Yeah, getting the underage kid drunk is much better.’

‘You’re nineteen,’ Will says. ‘This is _Russia._ ’

Alex is already taking a drink, still laughing.

-

They get about halfway through the bottle before Alex asks.

‘Can you grow anything?’

Will thinks about it. ‘Not _anything,_ ’ he says. ‘But like, plants and flowers and fruit, yeah.’

‘That’s pretty cool,’ Alex says, glass tilting dangerously. ‘How does it work?’

Will shrugs. ‘I dunno. I brought a bunch of dead flowers back to life when I was a kid, mamma said I was a håxa, like my grandpa.’

‘My aunt was a håxa,’ Alex says. His cheeks are very pink. Will is suddenly aware of how young he looks. ‘She could tell the future. She used to bet with my uncles on football games, they would get so mad.’

‘Awesome,’ Will says. He pours himself another drink, only slopping a little bit onto the blanket under him. Whatever, it’s vodka, it’ll evaporate.

Alex hums, finishes his drink. ‘I wanted to be magic, when I was a kid,’ he says.

Will shrugs, a little. ‘It gets less cool when you get older. It did for me, anyway. Though I do always get to have fresh veggies, so. It’s the little victories, I guess.’

Alex hums again, like Will’s just said something incredibly wise. ‘Flying would be cool though,’ he says, ultra-serious.

Will laughs. ‘Yeah, Wenny,’ he says, pouring him another drink. ‘Flying would be cool.’

-

There’s a lot of brown in Anaheim. Will’s kind of glad when he gets sent down to Norfolk. At least Virginia has green.

Will rents an apartment in Ghent, about a ten minute drive away from the arena. He has window-boxes in every available room, full of plants.

‘How the fuck do you keep all these alive?’ Boss asks one day, coming over for an impromptu Xbox tournament with Crammer.

‘My cleaning service waters them,’ he lies, easily. He doesn’t have a cleaning service.

‘Huh,’ Crammer says. ‘Are those _strawberries_?’

‘I like strawberries,’ he says, shrugging. ‘They’re really easy to grow.’

‘In the same planter as a cactus?’

‘I have green thumbs, I guess,’ Will says. ‘FIFA or CoD?’

-

Alex sends him a text when he gets traded. It’s just a picture of the park outside his apartment and a bunch of emojis, mostly flowers and trees, but also the hockey stick, and the one hundred, and the two boys. 

It’s a cute text. He’s a sweet kid. Will’s excited to play with him again. He just has to make it to the show, now, and stay there.

He gets a couple games, even scores a goal, but he ends the season in Springfield. It’s fine. It happens.

_Training buddies this summer?_ Alex texts him, when both their seasons are over.

Will sends him a fist bump emoji and a weightlifting one. Alex sends him the laugh-crying emoji.

-

Will loves summers back home.

Sweden is so many different shades of green. 

He’s older, so Alex offers to fly out to him and train there. _Don’t want to mess up your habits_ , he says. _I know you’re set in your ways and all._

_fuck you im 22 not 62_ , Will texts back, but. He’s kind of excited for Alex to come and stay.

-

He introduces Alex to his mom, his dad, his dog, and the daisies, in that order.

Alex says hello to them all with equal solemnity. Even the flowers.

Will closes his eyes and makes the flowers wave hello back. It surprises a laugh out of Alex.

-

Midsummer sneaks up on Will.

Will’s halfway through a set of bicep curls when his phone rings. Alex answers it. That’s just how they are now, he guesses.

‘Your mom wants you to pick stuff up for the party tonight,’ Alex informs him, holding the phone to his chest.

Will finishes his set and sweeps his hair back out of his face.

‘What party?’

Alex rolls his eyes and keeps talking to his mom.

‘Alex, _what party_?’

Alex finishes his phone call and hangs up. ‘How do you not know it’s midsummer?’ he asks. ‘Aren’t you like, king of nature and shit?’

Well, shit.

-

Will makes Alex a flower crown in blue and red and silver. Jackets colours.

Alex wears it all night, proud.

Will watches him, and tries not to watch him, and thinks about kissing him. None of these are new, when he really thinks about it.

-

Columbus is better than Anaheim, and better than Norfolk, and _way_ better than Springfield.

When he finds out he’s staying for good, he buys an apartment overlooking Goodale Park, in the same building as Alex, and a bonsai that takes about five minutes to take over his entire kitchen counter.

-

Will’s English is fucking great, but he and Alex speak Swedish together because it’s nice. Comforting. Feels like home.

(The first time Will kisses him, that feels like home too.)

-

‘I didn’t realise you had a tattoo,’ Alex says, trailing his fingers over the green.

They’re lying in bed together, letting the sweat dry on their skin. Will flips his palm to show Alex the underside of his forearm, where the tattoo is more visible against the paler skin there.

‘Little bit easier to hide than yours,’ Will says, brushing the fingers of his free hand against Alex’s ribcage, where his tattoo is stark and black.

‘I like it,’ Alex says, following one of the vines with the tip of a finger.

‘Me too,’ Will says, twists his wrist, flares his fingers, and there’s a sunflower sitting in the palm of his hand, roots wrapped around his wrist, where the tattoo fades to skin.

-

Alex spots it faster than Will thought.

They’re at the Foligno Christmas party, hiding in the kitchen from the adults, who are talking about things like mortgages, and babies.

‘You know, you’re not subtle,’ he says, putting down his wine glass, arms folded.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Will says, taking a sip of his own wine.

‘Uh huh,’ Alex says. ‘Like you don’t do this every year.’

Will lets his eyes widen, innocent, and he glances up at the mistletoe swaying gently above them, half hidden by the overhead light. He tilts his head at it, and it waves its tiny green leaves at him. Traitor.

When he looks back down, Alex is looking at him, eyebrows raised.

‘Fine,’ Will says, sighing dramatically. ‘I wanted an excuse to kiss you in public, even though we’re _already boyfriends_ , you got me.’

‘I know you,’ Alex says, taking the glass out of his hand and putting it next to his own. ‘Come on, let’s get it over with.’

‘ _Get it over with_?’ Will asks. ‘I _create_ plants from _nothing_ as a show of love and you want to _get it over with_?’

Alex shrugs, deadpan, but Will can see a smile fighting at the corner of his mouth. ‘You gonna kiss me under the mistletoe or not, Karlsson?’

Will sighs, again, and kisses him.

-

Will’s flowers are dying.

He knows Alex is worried about him. _He’s_ worried about him.

He got the phone call from Jarmo last night, while they were eating dinner.

Jarmo had thanked him for his time in Columbus, and wished him well. Will says a lot of one word responses and watches the lilies on his kitchen table wilt.

-

He leaves Alex an acorn and a pot full of damp soil.

He doesn’t wake him. His flight is early, they said their goodbyes last night.

It’s easier this way. A fresh start.

-

Two months into the season, Will gets a text.

_Fresh starts suck_ , it says.

_I miss you_ , it says

_Your acorn turned into a tree even though I kept forgetting to water it_ , it says.

Will looks at his phone for a long time, before replying.

_ It’s almost Christmas. _  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**dec 23rd 2017; las vegas, nevada**

Will’s apartment looks like a jungle when Alex pushes the door open.

‘Jesus, Bill,’ he says, pushing past a heap of vines.

Will is in the kitchen, having a staring competition with the venus fly trap on the breakfast nook. He looks up at the sound of Alex’s voice, and beams. He has a flower behind his ear. It’s kind of nauseatingly cute.

‘You _made_ it,’ he says.

‘Almost didn’t,’ Alex says. ‘McCarran is hell on earth. Worse than LAX.’

Will laughs. Alex forgot how beautiful he was like this, hair falling in his face. He’s wearing a shirt that he stole from Alex. God, Alex _wants_.

He takes a step into the kitchen, and the ceiling rustles. When he glances up, it’s a tapestry of mistletoe.

‘Why are you like this?’ he asks, looking back at Will. ‘Why do you keep thinking you have to trick me into kissing you?’

‘It’s _romantic_ ,’ Will says, coming over to him. ‘I’m making a _gesture_ , stop being a Grinch.’

‘Oh my god,’ Alex says, but he lets Will kiss him anyway, hands cupping his jaw. He smells like potting soil and cinnamon and home.


End file.
